TOTALLY UNFAIR! My Developer Peers CHEATED To Get Their Jobs!

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, it is Thursday. Just headed to the office now. Don't usually go on Thursdays, but calendar kind of cleared up. I'm going to go get some focus work done with a colleague to help get some of the final stuff for this really big project wrapped up. Sorry, I'm at the gas station. this van thing is not driving too uh coherently. Um I'm going to go to Reddit for a topic. This one's kind of interesting. Um I think I think it will be applicable for some people. Um essentially this is from CS career questions. I'm sorry I just want to pull my map back up. uh from CS career questions and uh I just switched away from Reddit so I don't even know what the title of the post was. Essentially this person is I I believe they're in college and they're very frustrated because obviously as a aspiring software developer uh very difficult job market right now.

No doubting that. Um, but they just had two of their peers land jobs and they're um they're really bothered by this because they feel like they've uh I don't know what the right word is. They've been duped. They've been scammed. They've been I don't know, their friends had some sort of unfair advantage. But they go on to describe that, you know, they've been building projects and doing all this stuff on the side and like it's it's impossible to get a job. and they seemingly describe their peers that they're referring to as uh some individuals that really just cannot code at all, you know, and it's almost like they're self-proclaimed like they don't even know how to program kind of thing. So, um I don't believe that this person's like trying to insult their peers or their friends are just kind of saying like, "Hey, look, like these guys are even saying like they're no good." Um, I think that's kind of how I interpreted it.

But they were able to secure jobs. And how did they do it? Well, this person's kind of pissed off that they were able to like smoo with HR and end up securing jobs. So, I'll kind of talk through this from my perspective. Just a friendly reminder that if you want questions answered, please leave them below in the comments. uh anything about software engineering or career development, happy to try and answer. I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. I've been at Microsoft for almost 5 years. I'm an engineering manager for almost 13 years. So, I've been doing this for a little while. If you want to be kept anonymous, you can send a message to Dev Leader on social media. That's my main YouTube channel as well. Uh that way if you send me a message, I can keep you anonymous. If it's a comment, it's public for everyone.

So, with that said, um I think unfortunately what this person just discovered is networking. And um that's why I was kind of laughing when I was thinking about going to talk about this topic because it's like there's a bunch of different directions you can try to invest your time into for um for anything really. And when it comes to getting your, you know, your first job, especially or switching jobs at all, um, you know, I I would not recommend that people just ignore building stuff on the side or working in building things in general. Um, I think that that's a bit of a mistake. And the reason I say that is because there's a few phases that I look at when it comes to getting a job. One is going to be that you need to be able to stand out in the first place, right?

If you if you don't stand out amongst the volume of people that are applying to a particular job, you're just not going to be noticed. There's going to be other people that are standing out, they'll get selected for interviews. So that's, you know, phase one is applying and standing out. Phase two is actually doing the interview, right? And many interviews, it's pretty common. And you'll have like three major categories of questions. Some type of coding question, some type of like system design type of question, and behavioral questions. Now, of course, what I've just described is more of like a big tech style interview with multiple rounds. So, this is pretty common. There's lots of other flavors of this, but generally, you'll get questions in these groups. There's also situations where you'll have take-home stuff. You might have situations where you're doing like pair programming. I I like both of those personally because I would excel at a take-home thing versus random lead code stuff on a whiteboard.

That's me. I know some people hate that thought. Pay me if I'm going to do a take-home thing. We're not here to discuss that. Point is, that's the second phase is actually doing the interview. Again, you want to stand out in the interview as well. Now, the third phase is actually doing your job. If you've not done actual software development, right? If all you did was schmoo, you might nail you might nail phase one and two, right? You might do the right things to get noticed, get the interview, you might uh, you know, have things memorized, you get lucky in the interview, you stand out, great. No harm, no foul. Awesome stuff. You did it. You got the job. But now that you have to do the work, if you've never actually built stuff, if you've never actually coded, you have no idea what's going on, that part's probably going to be pretty rough.

So, I don't think that you can ignore building stuff or actually coding if you want to be successful in general. But what this person's realizing is that they had friends that were able to do the networking part really effectively. I'm assuming really effectively. I don't know if they spent, you know, if it was ineffective cuz they spent so much time and it just worked out in the end. But let's assume it's at least more effective than this person writing the post. So, the reason I wanted to talk about this is because when people talk about uh like they're posting about job hunting and stuff like that, uh I see a few different angles that people are taking in their approach. And you know, let me be very transparent, like I am not in a position right now where I'm hunting for a job, right? Um, I've only switched companies in the last 13 years once.

I got hired on to Magnet Forensics when I graduated uh from the University of Wateroo almost 13 years ago and then I switched from Magnet Forensics to Microsoft almost 5 years ago. Okay. So, I am not I'm not trying to talk about how I went searching. I did do that search like I said a few years ago. Uh but I'm not actively doing that now. And this is for a management role for this person. That's not what they're doing. So, things are things are different, right? My point is that when I hear about or read about people doing their search, um it feels like some people are either I see like two major categories. Um people that are basically just trying to blast resumes and applications and stuff as much as they can, right?

their their approach to networking is you know LinkedIn requests please uh please review my resume and refer me to this company uh you know it's like an opening message uh or they're just you know like I said applying to like every role you got that as one end of this spectrum and then the other side is more uh a lot more targeted networking um I feel like there's a sweet spot I feel like for example if you were to spend all of your time just networking, literally all of your extra time, and you weren't actually spending time writing code and building stuff and practicing, you're you might find that maybe that's going to accelerate your odds at a, you know, a job perhaps. I'm not even saying that that is going to help. Um, I think that it increases your chances for success again because it's helping you stand out compared to just, you know, being yet one more resume that looks very similar to the the 999 other ones, right?

You might be able to shortcut that uh resume review part and actually get added into the interview round potentially. I'm not guaranteeing it. I'm just saying that might be something that happens to some people. uh then you might stand out in the interview, right? But then you might have challenges in the interview if you haven't actually coded or spent time building things. Uh you might have challenges on the job getting started if you're like, I actually don't have experience doing this. So I think there is a sweet spot, but it sounds like this person who's kind of frustrated here is not uh they haven't found the sweet spot from the other side. It sounds like they're spending uh you know maybe all of or most of their time just on the let me go build projects part and um I don't know personally I think

that I would recommend like a balance um when I think about I don't know like things in general I find like most things if you take opposite like polar opposites like they're probably not the most effective. But um somewhere and it doesn't have to be directly in the middle but somewhere in the middle maybe more to one side or the other is is maybe the most effective. Um, for me personally, what like and if I say personally as a software engineer, not an engineering manager at this point, for me as a software engineer, I would probably find more value in making sure I could hone my skills, right? So, I would be closer to the let me build things part. I would be focusing on trying to get a volume of applications out, but then I would still be trying to make sure that I'm doing targeted networking.

So, I would say like where are the places that I want to work, right? I'm just going to pick random companies. I want to work at Microsoft. I want to work at Google. I want to work at Facebook and maybe a video game company because that would be super awesome. And I don't know, um Blizzard. Well, Blizzard's own Microsoft. Now, let's just pretend we're going with like Blizzard, right? I want to work at Blizzard cuz they make Diablo and I love Diablo and that would be so cool. So what I would be trying to do is go on LinkedIn, look for other software engineers that work there, look for hiring managers that work there or any manager, even product managers, and just start like basically connecting with those people, following them, reading their posts, engaging with them, and then getting to a point where I could send them a message to ask them questions about what work is like there.

not hey like please refer me but hey like what you've been writing about sounds really interesting right and I would try to find people that are writing or sharing about work or if they're sharing about maybe it's more general but you see that they happen to work at they're at Microsoft right and so they're talking about general stuff and you're like hey I was I've been reading your post for a bit you know thank you and um saw you talking about topic X and I was curious is like I'm really interested in topic X, but what is that like at Microsoft specifically, right? It would be really cool if if you don't mind sharing some of your thoughts on like what that looks like at Microsoft because the people that are sharing stuff to try and be helpful, I genuinely feel like if they're trying to be helpful and they get asked a question, they're going to want to help you.

People are busy, sure, but if you're not demanding things of them and you're being genuinely curious, I think people are open to that. But that would be my approach to networking. I would do that for a period of time and then after doing that for a bit and engaging with people with their posts and stuff like that. Maybe I'm even looking for recruiters after a point, maybe I might ask someone, hey, do you know if there's other teams hiring? Um, is there a recruiter that you might be able to refer me to on LinkedIn or a team or something? Like basically, could you help direct me in, you know, in move me in the right direction here? I'm not saying that you have to go handle it, but if you can point me in the right direction, like that would be super helpful, right? Just get something going.

But I would be more targeted in my networking versus just spending all of my time doing it. But that's what I think would work well for me as an engineering manager. Now, the difference is that like I still build stuff cuz I love to write code outside of work, but my role doesn't really require that I'm writing code. I don't want an engineering manager role that involves me writing code. And I don't want that because I want to spend more time leading people. I want to be able to be in a position where I'm managing managers, not just individual contributors. The more that you are doing that, the less time you spend writing code. So for me it is a red flag if a role expects me to write code. Why? Because that's not moving me in the direction that I want to be moving in.

Not for my career at least. Okay. So for me, I would be spending I would be moving the opposite way. I would be spending more time on the networking side of things, right? I would be practicing my interview skills because I would want to make sure that uh odds are hopefully less coding in my interviews. I still had it uh you know around 5 years ago when I was interviewing in big tech. I feel like I I can't recall but I think Amazon was the only company that didn't ask me coding questions. Google did, Microsoft did. My Facebook interview got cancelled like literally right before the interview was supposed to happen. I had uh the recruiter confirming the interview time and then I had another email that was saying like sorry it's been cancelled like back to back and I was like I I don't even know which one takes precedence.

Uh but I guess the role ended up being filled. Um, so anyway, like for me, I don't want to have to write code at work. So I would spend I'm still going to practice coding for interviews. I don't want to be caught off guard, but I would be spending more time networking now. And I would recommend, it sounds like this person is kind of frustrated. I would say, yeah, maybe it's time that you spend a little bit more effort on the networking side of things. you just got proof that it works. Now, this person might notice like they're going to move forward from this. They're going to have their peers or their friends or whatever. Maybe those people are going to struggle a little bit in their software engineering roles to start with. I'm not going to say they're failing at it. I don't want to say that.

I don't think that's fair. But they might find that they have a harder time. Sorry, I got to move over some some lanes here. Um, and then this person, maybe it takes them a little bit longer to to get their first job because they weren't spending as much time networking, but once they're in, maybe they're more comfortable navigating code bases and stuff like that. Hard to say. I'm making a lot of assumptions, right? The the point here is that the networking side of things does work. There's people I know, sorry, I talk about LinkedIn a lot because I I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I realize some people hate LinkedIn, some people hate social media in general. I'm a content creator on the side. That's why I'm making videos and stuff. Um, but I use LinkedIn pretty heavily. And I'll see other people sharing uh their networking success stories, right?

Like it works. It's not a silver bullet. It doesn't mean you start networking and then all of a sudden you get a million job offers the next day. Doesn't work like that. But you're increasing your surface area for luck. It's like it's that's as straightforward as I think I can make it. Right? If you don't do any networking, how do you expect to have those types of opportunities come up? You can't. So if you want those types of opportunities come up, you have to do some networking. But again, those are opportunities. They're not guarantees. Just like getting a job interview is not a guarantee for the job. It's the opportunity to showcase yourself for that role. Right? So, lots of factors, but you have to be if you want the opportunities, at least you have to participate in the networking aspect. Um, I've talked about this a little bit before, too.

Uh, in terms of networking, I kind of gave you uh a a couple of hints as I was chatting through this, but uh I think if you're going to network, I definitely do not recommend the um the approach where you expect a stranger to do something for you right away. Okay. Um some people will. It's like statistically there's going to be some people that just will. I just wouldn't rely on it. I don't think it's a good strategy. Um I'm speaking from from my point of view when I have people that send me stuff that's like please like first message is hi like I'm here's everything about me and I'm like I don't know who this person is so here's all this information about them and then they go please refer me to a job. I'm like, I I I don't I don't know you. It's like that's not There's a couple things that I don't like about that.

I'm just going to be transparent, right? Like I don't know you. So referring you to a job does not feel comfortable to me because that's my name associated with that and if I don't know you, I can't put my name behind it. Doesn't feel right. So that's one thing. Number two is like it's a total disregard for my time to be totally honest. Like I got to do and I I got you know all sorts of people that send me messages. So I just I just quite literally do not have time to be to be doing that. And that's why like I started doing resume reviews on my main channel. which is a great plug if you're interested. It's totally free, so whatever. Cost me money. Um, send you can go to my main YouTube channel, Dev Leader, and uh, if you check out the resume review playlist, if you watch one of the videos in the first minute, I explain how to submit your resume.

The reason I'm not telling you how to do it here is cuz I want you to go watch one. Uh, spoiler alert, right? And, um, you can see how I approach the the resume review itself. If it's not a roast, right, I will give criticism. I will talk about the things that I like, try to balance it out. I'm not making fun of anyone. But yeah, you can submit your resume. I will review it. Uh but I have uh it's nice. I have a little bit of a backlog of them to get through now, which is good. People have been uh thankful for them. So, I feel like it's a it's a win for everyone. and I get to make some extra content. People get their resume reviewed. The video editor gets paid. Everyone everyone's happy. So, that was my approach to people being like, "Here, review my resume." And I'm like, "I don't got time for that, man." I'm like, "I got to make content, though.

I got time for that." So, nice balance. But I just wouldn't recommend reaching out to people and asking them to do stuff for you if you don't know them. And that's why I said if you're curious and you start trying to have a conversation and you're just like, you know, appreciative of the information people are sharing, generally people are a little bit more uh receptive just as a heads up. So, with all that said, practice your lead code, unfortunately. Make sure you're building because I think that's the most important at the end of the day. That's what you're going to be doing. Practice your behavioral interview questions. And make sure you're networking. Don't forget about the networking part. You can do it online. You can do it in person if you go to meetups and stuff, but uh don't skip out on that. Okay, I'm going to end it there because this car is going to keep beeping till I go crazy.

Thanks so much. I'll see you next time.